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Denver met me in the hall. “Finn! You made it!” He hugged me like we were old friends, unselfconscious about the fact that despite changing into a dry shirt, he was otherwise soaked in sweat.
I hugged him back and felt something loosen in my chest, something that had begun to close off when I left music, that had sealed completely when Dad died. It didn’t matter that I’d only met Denver once before in person and talked to him on the phone a couple of times. There’s a feeling you get when you meet someone you instantly understand. “Incredible show, man,” I told him. “You killed it.”
“Thanks. This is a fucking honor.”
I rolled my eyes. “Shut up.”
He shook his head as he led me down the hall to the green room. “I played The Spin for my girlfriend last week and she fell in love with it. It’s on nonstop rotation in our house.”
The Spin was my third album, the one I had poured my heart into and that had barely sold. It was like Denver Gilchrist knew the immediate route to my heart. “That’s nice to hear,” I managed, hoping I sounded casual about it.
“Come meet the rest of the band.” He pulled me into the green room.
The first thing I saw in the green room was Juliet. She had a half empty bottle of water in her hand, and I felt like I was suddenly breathing different air. She went still when she saw me.
Denver introduced me to Stone Zeeland and Axel de Vries, and I shook their hands, congratulating them on a great show. Will Hale, the band’s manager, was also there, and he shook my hand, too. Will was tall and clean cut, and though he was dressed out of place for being backstage at a rock show, he looked comfortable here, as if he spent his working life in various green rooms. I caught him giving me a look that was quietly assessing, so I gave him one back.
Then I turned to Juliet. I didn’t touch her. I couldn’t. “Juliet,” I greeted her, trying for polite.
“Finn,” she greeted back, matching my tone.
She wasn’t going to give me anything. I hadn’t thought she would. She wasn’t surprised, because I had told her I was coming. But she had locked everything down. Maybe because she was nervous, or maybe because she didn’t give a shit that I was there. She wasn’t going to give a hint one way or another.
I turned back to the rest of the band. “So when’s the tour?”
Stone and Will exchanged a look. Despite how differently they dressed, they somehow had a resemblance between them. You only noticed it when they stood side by side. “In a few weeks,” Will answered me.
Axel grinned. “We’re not leaving until after the wedding, of course. That was already in the schedule. You two have to do your thing.”
“We want pictures.” Stone had a glint of amusement in his eyes. “Lots of pictures.”
“Anyway, show’s over,” Denver announced. He gestured to Will, Stone, and Axel. “We’re all going back to the hotel to behave, like the old, married men that we are. You two have fun.” They all grabbed their things and started to file out of the room. “Later,” Denver added with a jaunty wave.
In a moment, they were gone, and Juliet and I were alone.
“What was that?” I asked her.
Juliet had drained the last of her water, and she threw the bottle into the bin with an excess of force. “That was my band being shitheads. It’s what they do.”
I felt myself smiling. “What did you tell them about us?”
“Nothing.” She scowled, the classic Juliet scowl that was intimidating and somehow hot. “I told Denver we fooled around once. I think they gossiped like a bunch of old ladies, and now they’re setting us up.”
“That’s nice of them.” I stepped into her space, catching the scent of her sweaty skin, flushed from the exertion of playing a show. “Since I haven’t seen you in weeks.”
I traced my fingertips along the curve of her hip, a test. I watched her chest still as her breath caught.
Encouraged, I stepped even closer, so we were almost touching. I lowered my head and touched my lips to the side of her neck. “That was an incredible show,” I said. “You were amazing. You always are.”
She gasped, and then she whispered, “Finn.”
My hot, prickly woman. Was she tangled up in her own head again? I could fix that. “Do you know what I remember about performing?” I asked, my breath on her neck as I moved a hand to the small of her back. “Afterward, there’s all this adrenaline and pent-up energy. It’s pulsing through your veins. It takes hours to come down, and in the meantime, you feel like you might explode. The only relief is to have a release of energy.”
“Shut up.” She contradicted the insult by pressing her hands against my chest, resting them there, her fingers flexing. “Why did you come here, Finn?”
Was that a serious question? “I came to see you play.” I let my hand move down the curve of her ass, and then I began to lift the hem of her skirt. “I love watching you play.”
Her palms moved down to my stomach as her skirt moved up her thighs. We were in a gravitational field, unable to keep from touching each other. I kissed the corner of her lips.
